DEAR EDITOR:

Three years ago, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and then Councilwoman Lauren McNally held a listening session at Kirkmere playground to ask how to spend nearly $83 million in American Rescue Plan funding. At the meeting, I recommended Youngstown dedicate the entire amount to the sewer system improvements the city agreed to in 2015, especially the project that would eliminate overflows of raw sewage into Mill Creek Park. I noted this spending would have the benefit of completing the upgrades agreed to on behalf of the city by former officials. It would also show good faith toward timely completion of the work and avoiding fines that the city would otherwise be subject to. I suggested that every payer of the sewer tax on their water bills would benefit by eliminating or reducing future increases.

The response of Brown, Public Works Deputy Director Charles Shasho and Finance Director Kyle Miasek was basically that fines, as they had been waived in the past, could be waived again through negotiations. The mayor stated he wanted the funds spent on something “visible” to benefit the community. Since then, that $83 million has been spent in dribbles and drabs on many “visible” projects. I can’t think of even one that benefited me or my neighbors. The city has blown $83 million on projects that fail the “Is it necessary or is it nice?” test.

Now residents are faced with a very “visible” increase in the dollars and cents of the sewer portion of their water bills of 4% annually over the next four years. This is in addition to annual increases of 5% yearly over the past five years. In addition, the city is subject to a fine of an “invisible” $1.5 million, which presumably will come from the pockets of those paying the sewer tax and, to add insult to injury, even more “invisible” city dollars are lining the pockets of law and engineering firms to try to wiggle out of the fines and the sewer system improvements that the city agreed to in its 2015 Long Term Control Plan for Combined Sewer Overflows.

I wonder if city council and administration members would have spent the $83 million differently if the fines, legal costs and apparently necessary increases in sewer charges for all residents combined were coming out of their own pockets.

RICHARD OSTHEIMER

Youngstown